A Pretty Angry Father

This article describes Dick Cheney’s indignation at John Kerry’s bringing up his (Cheney’s) daughter’s lesbianism during one of the presidential debates. Cheney described himself as “a pretty angry father,” and Cheney’s wife called the maneuver a “cheap and tawdry political trick.” I agree with Cheney’s wife here. It was cheap when John Edwards brought it up during the VP debate, and it was cheap when Kerry brought it up again, though he did so a little more gracefully than Edwards did. So score a point for the Cheneys.

But take away points from the Cheneys for being complete assholes about their daughter’s sexuality and the rights she’s accorded. Take away about a million points for Cheney’s support of a proposed constitutional amendment that would take away from his daughter the civil liberty of marriage, which affords many rights such as spousal hospital visitation and the right to adopt children together as straight couples are able to. Sure, Kerry and Edwards have engaged in some cheap politicking, and that’s not to be respected. But Cheney’s shooting his own daughter in the foot, so to speak — attempting to deny her some basic rights he’s taken advantage of himself — and has the gall to be angry at Kerry for performing a pretty predictable speech act. Such hypocrisy for damned sure makes this father pretty angry.